http://www.bestofneworleans.com/imag...stmas_1950.jpg In a family photograph from New Iberia, 1950, six-year old George Rodrigue stands dressed as a cowboy on Christmas morning, an only child surrounded by symbols of the time: a Radio Flyer red wagon; promotional Coca-Cola Santa Clauses (in multiples because his dad traded them on a brick-laying job); a dartboard featuring Little Black Sambo*, a reality of a bigotry so culturally ingrained that no one in young George?s world thought twice about it; and a photograph on the fireplace mantle of cousin Nootsie, a fighter pilot shot down during World War II.

I see the fireplace bricks George?s father laid ever-so-straight with his bare hands, and I wonder at the Christmas ornaments, heirlooms of school projects, world travels, and craft fairs in my own childhood (still hanging on our tree today).? [ Read more ]